Wednesday, October 27, 2010

You’ve seen them, all decked out in the latest tier gear whispering you for an invite into a PUG raid. Their numbers look good. They tell you how they’re the shiznits. And then you enter the raid...

The problem with the new heroic point system is that you get players who easily can gear up without the effort required to become proficient in one’s class. Yeah, big problem there. The disparity isn’t limited to inept Death Knights, though Lord knows there’s a fair share of them who couldn’t follow direction if you put up a light bulb that said, “DO NOT STAND IN THE FIRE!” This problem goes for such classes as a mage. And now with fire’s AOE insanity, this will prove the patience of every tank and healer out there come 85 end-game content. With all the CC that’s coming, this will require a lot of coordination by all players to ensure DPS actually waits for the tank to get enough threat and to focus fire on single targets, as well as maintain CC’s. To help all you healers and tanks out there, let me give you some hints on what to look out for when choosing a mage for a raid:

1) Do they have any end-game content trinkets, rings, and/or gear obtained ONLY through actual *10-man raiding;2) The moment the tank pulls a mob, does the mage immediately unleash or pause the 5 to 10 seconds it takes for the tank to get enough threat; and3) Make sure they know in advance they will be CC’ing and be sure to mark CC’s with a distinct Lucky Charm.

DPS classes are going to get a wakeup call, much like most of us did during Burning Crusade where mobs hit hard and actually require coordination by the team (i.e., CC’s, focus fire, health and mana bar awareness, etc.). That is a good thing. Players have become too complacent in their gameplay, frustrating or, worse, boring tanks and unnecessarily stressing healers out. Frankly, I think end-game Cataclysm will whittle down the incompetent players and bring back the efficacy in gameplay experience.

*Note: 10-man raiding is actually harder than 25-man, because a person can’t hide their incompetence. Though many argue that 25-man is harder, in truth its actually just more gimmicks and additional movement. In 10-man raids every player counts. If you screw up, it affects the whole team. So, there’s more pressure to perform than in 25-man where a single mistake won’t wipe a raid.

3 comments:

2) The moment the tank pulls a mob, does the mage immediately unleash or pause the 5 to 10 seconds it takes for the tank to get enough threat;

I would have said that it used to be that leveling a mage through LFD would have taught them that, but have you tried a lowbie mage after 4.01 dropped? Talk about being OP, it's almost obscene. (Pally's are worse, but since this is a mage post...)

And that's without Blizzard until you get to L52.

You don't even get aggro control taught properly, because you can wait 5-10 seconds and still pull aggro with one Frostbolt.

Maybe in normal mode where some good players can carry bad ones 10man could it be argued to be less forgiving but in hardmodes I seriously doubt 10mans will be harder even in cataclysm.

Too many standard blizzard boss tactics are made much harder by number of bodies and lack of available space and in hardmodes, at least before the ICC buff, you needed everyone to perform. There was no room to carry people and a single mistake could easily wipe a raid.